Volume 5 — Original. The Indissolubility Of Christian Marriage.

Number Two.

It is evident that Jesus Christ intended to legislate and did legislate in regard to marriage. The commandment which he gave, requiring the marriage contract to be respected as inviolable and indissoluble, is a law, has the force of a law, and is obligatory, not only upon ecclesiastical, but also upon civil legislators and judges. There is no power upon earth, either in the church or in the state, which has power to abrogate or change it. We do not pretend that this law was promulgated to the Jewish people, or to pagan nations, directly and immediately. Our Lord legislated immediately only for those who should become the subjects of his kingdom by baptism. For all others, he legislated only mediately, by promulgating to all mankind the precept to embrace his faith and be baptized into his church, and thus to bring themselves under the entire code of Christian law. The unbaptized are subject to the natural law only in regard to marriage, as in everything else; and their marriage is not a sacrament, but a merely natural contract. What we maintain is, that the law regarding Christian marriage has been established by the sovereign authority of Jesus Christ for all the baptized, and that this law respects the very essence of marriage as a contract, invalidating all pretended marriages which are not in accordance with it. All ecclesiastical legislators are, therefore, bound to legislate in conformity with this law. They must treat all marriages sanctioned and ratified by the law of Christ as valid and binding, and all others as null and void. All Christians must act in the same manner. And in Christian states, as all law-givers and judges are bound to act according to their conscience, and in conformity with the divine law, and as the revealed law of Jesus Christ respecting marriages is the supreme rule of the Christian conscience, having the force of a divine law, they are bound to make it the rule of all their enactments and judgments.

Some Protestant writers deny that our Lord intended to legislate respecting matrimony, and affirm that he merely laid down a rule of morality. This is, however, an unmeaning statement. He could not give a moral precept respecting matrimony without legislating. The essential morality of the question is determined by the law determining the conditions, motives, and obligations of the contract. Morality consists in conformity to this law, immorality in violating it. Our Lord could not, therefore, command anything as required by morality, or forbid anything as immoral, in relation to the essentials of marriage, without reenacting an already existing law, or promulgating a new law, defining the conditions by which a marriage is rendered a valid or an invalid contract.

The very circumstances and terms of his utterance on the subject show that he did legislate. Moses legislated on the subject, and permitted to men divorce in certain cases, with the privilege of remarriage to both parties. Our Lord expressly revokes this permission, so far as his own disciples are concerned, and declares that, according to the Christian law, whoever divorces his wife and marries another, or whoever marries a divorced party, must be held guilty of adultery. This is an act of legislation, for it is a law declaring null and void for the future certain marriages which, under the Mosaic law, were valid. Now, there is no civil law which can make a contract declared invalid by the divine law valid, binding, or lawful, or which can invalidate a contract made valid by the divine law. It is true that our Lord did not enact any civil law, properly so called, with civil penalties annexed to it, for the Jewish people, or for any Gentile nation. But he prescribed the standard according to which all legislators in Christian states are bound to make their civil laws.

The question now comes up, How are we to ascertain what the law of Jesus Christ is, and what is the law itself? We have discussed the last question in part, in our former number, in which we endeavored to show that the texts of Scripture in which we are informed concerning the precept given by Christ concerning marriage, properly understood, sustain the Catholic doctrine of the indissolubility of marriage. We have now to show how the Catholic doctrine and the law of the Catholic Church are established with an infallible certainty, and with a force absolutely obligatory on the conscience.

It is evident enough that the notion of legislators and judges attempting to discuss and decide upon the true meaning of texts of Scripture is absurd. Such a proceeding would never lead to any uniformity of legislation if attempted, and it would never be attempted in any community where principles of sound jurisprudence prevailed. Who, then, are to decide upon the meaning of these texts, if the ultimate appeal is to them? The Protestant clergy? They cannot agree among themselves. Even in the earliest and best days of Puritanism in New England, when a comparatively strict doctrine and legislation respecting marriage prevailed, there was a serious difference among the clergy respecting the lawful grounds of divorce. Moreover, the Protestant clergy do not claim the right of interpreting the Scripture. The laity have an equal right, and each individual has it for himself. Rationalists claim also the right of making reason the criterion of the truth of the doctrine of Scripture and the teachings of Jesus Christ. It is therefore plain that it is a futile proceeding to attempt to make the text of Scripture a standard of legislation or public sentiment in regard to marriage. The result which has actually been produced is an inevitable result, namely, that the prevalent opinion and sentiment in the community, based on their common sense, will regulate legislation in regard to marriage and divorce. This common sense is not an enlightened and elevated common sense, proceeding from sound, rational, and moral principles. It is a low, irrational sense, derived from passion, self-interest, expediency, and a perverted reason, which tends continually to degenerate more and more, and whose logical consequences may be seen developing themselves every day under our own eyes.

The law established by Jesus Christ is not and cannot be based upon the texts of the sacred historians who inform us of the fact that he did promulgate such a law. These texts are not the law, and the enacting force does not proceed from them. They may be cited in proof of the fact that the law was made, and in proof of what the law was. The law itself was verbally proclaimed by our Lord, and its force dates from and depends upon that verbal enactment. The historical account given by the evangelists added nothing to it, and the comments of the apostles upon it are mere allusions to it, or exhortations to keep it, which presuppose its existence. It was a part of the unwritten law of the church handed down by tradition, whose legitimate expositors were the apostles and their successors. Our Lord must have instructed the apostles fully on the subject, and they must have transmitted full and explicit instructions on the same subject to the bishops and clergy to whom the government of the church was committed. As occasion required, the unwritten Christian common law was embodied in canons by episcopal councils, and thus became statute law. The true method of fixing decisively the real scope and contents of the divine legislation of our Lord is, therefore, to investigate the legislation of the church from the earliest times.

The doctrine defined by the Council of Trent upon which the modern canonical law of the Catholic Church is based, is too well known to need any statement. It is evident that this definition was no innovation, but merely a solemn declaration of the doctrine universally received in the Catholic Church, levelled against the innovations of Protestants. The mere fact that the indissolubility of marriage has been recognised in the Catholic Church and enforced under the severest penalties, and that it has been also recognised and protected by the civil law of Europe, until Protestantism brought in a disastrous change, is sufficient to prove that the church received her law from Jesus Christ or the apostles. So severe a law, one so inconvenient to individuals, one so contrary to the established legislation of both Jews and Gentiles, could never have been established and enforced by any other than a divine authority, and in the origin of the Christian community. If a milder law had ever prevailed in the church, an attempt to establish a stricter one would have met a violent opposition. History would record the struggle, the pages of the fathers would bear witness to the difference of opinion and the mutual discussion of the question by the opposing parties. Councils would have been called to decide it, and, if any change had been generally enforced in favor of a stricter law, either it would have been based on reasons supposed to justify or require the abrogation of an indulgence formerly granted, or, if not, the previous existence of this indulgence would have been denounced as a corruption, and these who maintained it would have been condemned. The quiet, undisturbed continuity of the tradition and practice of the church from the earliest ages proves that no serious and widespread difference of doctrine ever arose, but that the modern Catholic doctrine of the indissolubility of marriage held undisputed sway from the beginning. The opponents of this doctrine cannot pretend to establish any clear tradition in their own favor. They can only endeavor to obscure the evidence of the tradition sanctioning the Catholic doctrine. Notwithstanding their efforts, the chain of evidence from St. Augustine back to Origen, Justin Martyr, and Hermas, including all the canons which still remain, and which were enacted by ecclesiastical councils, is unbroken and conclusive, as may be seen by consulting those Catholic authors who have written scientific treatises on the subject. The whole discussion is, however, of little practical value, except as showing the necessity of the infallibility of the church in defining doctrine and her supreme authority in judging moral questions, and as corroborating the proof that she possesses this infallible and supreme authority. The real question at issue is, whether marriage is a sacrament confided to the guardianship of the church, and regulated by a law of which the church is the supreme judge, or whether it is a natural contract under the control of the civil law. The Protestant world has taken the latter side of the alternative. Consequently, the case of marriage comes to this issue; what civil laws respecting marriage and divorce are best calculated to promote happiness, morality, social and civil prosperity and well-being? Legislatures and courts must decide the question, while churches, clergymen, moralists, writers, etc., can exercise no other influence than that of argument and persuasion. These arguments must be drawn from reason and the natural law. They must bear upon the point that the strength and perpetuity of the marriage bond is useful and necessary for the preservation of society. The doctrine of Scripture and the authority of religion can only be brought in to increase the motives and sanctions of the natural law.

It is useless to hope that the doctrine of the indissolubility of marriage will ever be adopted either in theory or practice as the result of reasoning on the principles of either the natural law or the moral code of Christianity, by those who reject the infallibility of the Catholic Church. It is also useless to hope that the Protestant clergy and jurists will ever agree together as to the proper ground of divorce, and the proper safeguards of marriage, much less that they will agree in adopting the opinions of the most rigorous school among them, as sustained by their able and learned advocate, President Woolsey, in The New-Englander. The only thing in the power of the Protestant clergy and their lay coadjutors is, to diminish and retard the destructive tendency of the false principle they have admitted into theology and legislation by their denial of the Catholic doctrine regarding marriage. In this direction they may do something, and it is to be desired that they should exert themselves to the utmost to do all they can. The clergy may exert a certain moral and religious influence by acting according to some fixed principles and laws in regard to performing the marriage ceremony and admitting or excluding persons from communion. Also by preaching and writing on the obligations of marriage, the blessings which flow from unions which are hallowed by perfect and lifelong fidelity to conjugal and parental duties, and the evils which are the consequence of infidelity and frequent separations. Jurists and statesmen may reform the administration of law in the courts so as to decrease the facility of obtaining divorce, and secure to all parties a thorough protection of all the rights guaranteed to them by the civil law. Physicians and others may do good by pointing out the physical and social evils which flow from the violation of those laws on which the multiplication and healthy development of the race depend. So far as individuals are induced to marry in accordance with the dictates of pure affection and enlightened prudence, to observe the moral laws of the married state, and to remain faithful to each other until death, and so far as divorces and re-marriages are rendered less numerous, so far good will be done, and the well-being of society promoted. We desire most heartily that the utmost possible success may attend these well-meant efforts. Nevertheless, we cannot flatter our Protestant friends with any expression of our own conviction that this success will be anything more than placing a breakwater in the way of the current that is sweeping away the Christian institution of marriage. The principles and institutions which make society Christian, the traditions which connect it with the past and give it Christian and moral vitality, have been received and retained from the Catholic Church. As these are gradually abandoned and lost, society possesses no power to recover and restore them. Christian societies outside the church, and states composed of persons who are nominally Christian but out of Catholic communion, bear within them the principle of dissolution, without possessing any sufficient principle of recuperation. The Catholic Church alone possesses a divine law given by revelation which she is competent to explain and authorised to enforce, and which is a principle of perpetual life, capable of resisting every tendency to disease and death, and of renewing every decayed national constitution, restoring every degenerate people, and continually repeating the work wrought in the first formation of Christendom. Protestantism is a tubercular deposit in the centre of the bosom of society. Its necessary result is spiritual, moral, intellectual, and finally, physical death. As in the case of a person smitten with tuberculosis, there may be for a long time many portions of the lungs unaffected, much health and strength in the organs and limbs of the body, and an increase of cerebral excitement and activity, although the principle of death which will finally stop all vital activity is slowly and surely gaining upon the principle of life; so with those portions of Christendom which are smitten with heresy. There is much health and vigor remaining as the effect of the original state of sound, integral, Catholic life. Many individuals remain essentially sound in their belief and upright in their practice. There is even a flush on the surface of society, a hectic brilliancy in the eye of intellect, a fevered activity of thought and action, which is mistaken for genuine, healthful vigor and vitality. The boastful, shallow organs of public sentiment, whose real doctrines are infidel, but who are forced to wear a little smear of popular religion on their face, pretend, with an assurance equally sickening and ridiculous, to read lectures and give advice to the Vicar of Christ and the bishops of the Catholic Church on great moral and social questions. Their changes are rung with monotonous and unmeaning repetition upon railroads, telegraphs, steam, newspapers, heavy guns, and progress. The Catholic Church is denounced as the great obstacle in the way of modern society, because she adheres to the steadfast, unchanging affirmation of eternal principles of truth, law, and justice. Her complete spoliation is urged as the great means of hastening the march of society toward its goal. It is vain to expect an argument which has any solidity, or even the pretence of an answer which is grave and serious, to the reasonings and expostulations of those who point out the deadly symptoms which are concealed beneath this hectic activity and betrayed by this boastful demeanor. An ill-bred sneer, an unmeaning platitude, or a frivolous display of rhetoric is all that can be expected. Nevertheless, those who are able to think, and who have some real solicitude for progress in truth, in sound morality, in Christian virtue, in solid well-being and happiness, on the part of society and their fellow-men, will not be able to shut their eyes to the evident symptoms which prove that a deadly disease, already far advanced, is feeding on the vitals of the social organism. These symptoms have been pointed out by Protestant clergymen and medical writers, and we refer to their startling statements as evidence of the virulence and extent of the moral ulcer which is eating up the vitals of society and destroying the original, American population of the country. It is not the matter of a few divorces granted to married persons whose rights are judicially proved to have been violated in a flagrant manner, which is of such great importance. While the ancient laws of the states were rigidly enforced, and the number of divorces granted was small, the community received no grievous injury. The great evil which is so alarming, and is working such deplorable effects, consists in the great number of divorces granted, the facility with which they are obtained, and the flippant, shameless disregard of all judicial decorum by the courts of law. Behind all this is another evil, the violation of the morality of the conjugal state. The authors of Protestantism have opened the door to all these disorders by their denial of the indissolubility and sacramental character of matrimony, and their concession of the right to judge and decide upon the whole subject of the marriage contract to the civil power. The door which they have opened they cannot close. There is no protection for the sacredness of marriage at all adequate to the necessities of the case, except in a doctrine, a law, and a system of practical morality, promulgated and enforced by a church which has power over the conscience, and is acknowledged as possessing an authority delegated by Jesus Christ. The utter weakness and helplessness of Protestantism, and the absolute necessity of a return to the Catholic Church in order to save society and civilization, has been manifested in England and the United States in a more startling and sudden manner than could have been anticipated twenty years ago by the most sagacious prophet of the future. We wait with interest and anxiety to see what will be done by those who believe that the secession of the sixteenth century was really a reformation, and that the salvation of the human race is to be looked for from the principles of Luther and Calvin. At present, these principles appear to be tending to the abrogation of the institution of marriage in the Christian sense of the word, and the introduction of a species of polygamy worse than that of Mormonism.